Ah Ha Moment: Excercise

noun
1. bodily or mental exertion
2. a putting into action, use, operation, or effect


I finally feel like I need to put exercises in its proper place. Now I'm just taking about myself, I can't compare, note, or otherwise determine how exercise effects other. I have always thought of exercise as a means to control my weight. You might ask "how is that working for ya" This is the thinking... ok so I have a huge brownie with ice cream and whip cream on top. I deserve it, I worked out today. What does that even mean!!!!!! I deserve it!! I deserve to fill my body with CRAP! I work hard at the gym so that my body can starve itself on high calorie, high fat, nutritionally void food. Exercise is not the key, its more like the lock. With out eating right (the key) its useless in helping me lose weight.

Now before anyone think no I've lost all this weight walking, jog, weight lifting... whatever. I'm just talking about my little bubble. I was looking over the last couple of month. I have been losing weight for 4 1/2 month. Or really I should say I lost weight for the first 3 month and have been losing and gaining the same 5 pounds for the last month and a half. Sparkspeople is awesome. They have a calendar summary it show your calories, if you met all nutritional needs that day, did you exercise, and weight. So I was looking over the summary. The first 3 month I only missed one or two days of tracking my food. I didn't exercise at all and this is when I lost the most weight.

I notice that when I started working out again, my hunger level went way up and I stopped tracking my food because.....yup you guess it I was over eating. Now I do have some strategy that work to curb the hunger, but what about the mental part. I was still in that frame of mind of I deserve this brownie, cheeseburger, fried....you fill in the blank. What I really deserve is great tasting food, that is great for me! Why is it that I keep thinking that the food I have been eating veggies, fruit, lean meat, isn't normal and that greasy, nastiness is regular food. What kind of crazy twisted logic is that.

So does exercise have a place in my bubble. OH YEAH! I love to jog, not really in the moment...well sometimes. But I like how it makes me feel. I like looking at my thighs and having some muscle tone. I like being able to get off the floor with a spring, not having to have two people heft me up. I actually like to sweat and that feeling of accomplishment after I'm done.

So here is the point. I'm rethinking how I think of exercise. No longer is it my excuse to overeat, or indulge because I worked out. Exercise if soley to make my body feel better. So I vote for definition 2: a putting into action, use, operation, or effect.